


I'm Cool With It

by kagseyamas



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Blue Balls mcgee over here......, Coming Out, M/M, Making Out, Trans Male Character, angst with a whole loada fluff, begrudging lardo peptalk, tango is THE most tactless, tangowhiskey, trans fic, what's editing idk her, why did i make tony so jewish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9301679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagseyamas/pseuds/kagseyamas
Summary: Whiskey is an enigma. Tony puts his foot in his mouth. They fight and then they don't.Alt; Tango discovers why Whiskey doesn't like to be touched.





	

**Author's Note:**

> some of this was supposed to be Hot And Steamy and i just...couldn't? they just wanted to be cute, man, idk, i don't control what they do

Whiskey, for the most part, was an enigma. Tony often looked at him and wondered what he was thinking. Whiskey wouldn't tell him unless he directly asked, and it was only recently that he'd started answering honestly, swapping out snipped, ambiguous replies for what was actually on his mind. Tony often heard others refer to Whiskey as quiet, or rude, or stand-offish. He was quiet, sure, but Tony knew that it was just his nature. Whiskey was a gentle soul and rarely opened up to his peers. It made it all the more special that Whiskey had opened up to _him_. After all, his silent nature didn't matter—it complimented Tony's habit of running his mouth, so wether he got Whiskey talking or not it was a win-win situation.

Whiskey didn't come without his secrets, though. Tony had expected that, when they'd first started dating. You don't get quiet people without their mysteries, the same way you don't get people like Tony without an endless curiosity or a love for pie.

Whiskey didn't like to shower or change with the team. He hadn't created a fuss with Coach Hall, but he'd held his ground and refused to cave in from the very beginning, and it was something they had gotten used to by now. Whiskey was in and out of the bathrooms like a light, so quick that no one bar Tony ever even noticed his absence. It made him wonder why Whiskey had been doing it for so long that it was a perfectly honed skill, but it was one of the questions he never asked.

As well as this, Whiskey had made it clear from the start of their relationship that he didn't want to be physically intimate with Tony yet. They kissed, of course—made out, even—but Whiskey always made sure to stop him when Tony got too frisky or too handsy. It wasn't much of a problem, but it raised a lot of questions he wasn't sure if he should even attempt to ask. Tony was fine with waiting however long he needed to. He cared about Whiskey, cared about making him happy, and he would never do anything to hurt him or make him uncomfortable. The thing was, it wasn't as though Whiskey wasn't a fan of physical contact. He got _so_ into it when they were in the thick of it, and it was almost like he was holding himself back as well as Tony.

He would moan against Tony's lips and then clamp his mouth shut, run his hands through Tony's hair only to shove them under himself to keep them still. He'd wrap his legs around Tony's waist like it was the only thing anchoring him to the earth, and then seconds later drop them again as though Tony were made of fire and Whiskey was reaching his boiling point. He shuddered when Tony's hands found bare skin of their own accord one moment, and then smack them away the next.

Yes, Tony wanted to grind into him so hard he saw stars, wanted Whiskey to straddle his hips and bite his neck, wanted to not be able to tell where his skin ended and Whiskey's skin began. He knew deep down that Whiskey wanted that too—he saw it in the hungry way he looked at Tony, in his slurred words on the dance floor during a kegster, the goosebumps on his skin, risen from barely any touch.

There was no poetic way to put it: they were both horny as fuck.

And yet Whiskey stopped them every time, even after months of dating, and Tony had to either take a cold shower or think of his grandma, neither his preferred choice. But he rolled with it, and drowned out the anxious little voice inside that screamed that Whiskey just wasn't attracted to him. After all, he had noticed that Whiskey always failed to appear as excited as Tony was. And by that, he meant that he had never once seen Whiskey get hard. Maybe he was just good at strategically hiding it. Maybe Tony just didn't do it for him—he tried not to let that bother him.

Whiskey had expressed countless times how much Tony meant to him. Not through words so much, but in his smile, in the way he let himself relax around Tony, in the way he talked freely and without interruption about his interests once he got going. In the way that he liked to kiss Tony's nose, and run his fingers through his hair just because he liked how soft it was. In the pink of his skin after Tony first kissed him, in the way Whiskey had bumped noses with him because he didn't know how else to answer, whispered "love you" under the sheets when Tony was still and feigning sleep.

It didn't matter to him if Whiskey wasn't attracted to him—Whiskey _cared_ about him—he didn't need a boner to prove it.

 

He didn't mean for it to happen. A part of him wanted to blame Lardo for challenging him to a wicked game of flip cup. Another part of him wanted to blame the tub juice for being so heartburn-inducingly toxic. For the most part Tony blamed himself for not knowing his limit.

It was alright—Whiskey had gotten hammered too, and if it weren't for their attempt to keep their relationship between themselves, they probably would have made out on the Haus sofa. Tony wasn't sure if it was him, but he may have seen Whiskey do karaoke. If it had been him, his boyfriend had the voice of an angel and he was immensely proud. But who knew.

Tony's roommate Pat had a girlfriend on the soccer team and spent some of his nights in her dorm room, making Tony the happiest man alive when they swung by and found it empty.

Whiskey took the time to toe off his shoes at the foot of the bed while Tony threw himself straight down onto the mattress, peaking at Whiskey as he came—well, stumbled a little bit over a stray shoe—and then came to sit on Tony's bed next to him.

"Did you see Nursey do that keg stand?" Tony mumbled into his arm, although he wasn't sure if it sounded like english. "'Swawesome."

Whiskey smiled, kicking back his legs and reclining on the bed with his back against the headboard. At some point during the night his hair had gotten mussed up, and one side of his polo collar was sticking upwards. His face was happily flushed with intoxication. "Chad says the LAX bros are throwing a kegster tomorrow night, you wanna go?"

Tony groaned and rolled onto his back. "Aren't we supposed to have some like... _rivalry_ going on with them?"

Whiskey snorted. "This isn't West-side Story. Some of them are cool dudes."

Tony stared at him with his lips pursed. " _You're_ a cool dude."

Whiskey hummed and leaned in to press a kiss to his lips. "Fucking nerd."

Whiskey was enigma, and Tony wondered if anyone else knew how affectionate he really was behind closed doors.

Whiskey kissed him, and it tasted like coke and rum, and fifth grade butterflies, and like hot magma trickling down his throat. Tony shifted to lie on his side facing him, and Whiskey slid a hand over the back of his thigh, pulling it slightly over his own legs and drawing him closer still. Then, he paused, and pulled back to observe him.

"You taste like battery acid."

Tony grinned, nudging Whiskey's nose with his own. "Tub juice."

"I'm not gonna kiss you if don't clean up your act," Whiskey mused, but he looked like he didn't even believe it himself. Maybe this was his attempt at a chirp. God, Tony loved him so much.

He balked, pulling away from Whiskey completely and feigning an expression of mock awe and wonder.

"Oh my god," he said, "that is _exactly_ what Trisha Birkowitz said to me at my Bar Mitzvah. Oh man this is my seventh grade _dream_."

Whiskey threw his head back and laughed, as though there was something uncontrollable inside of him, and it was the most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen in his life. He treasured the moments when he could draw laughter from Whiskey's lungs, and soaked his drunken giggles up with a grin.

"Oh shut up," Whiskey laughed, pushing him away without any force. "You're the worst."

"Will you serenade me with _Party Rock Anthem_?" Tony continued, poking him in the sides. "That would _really_ complete this whole fantasy for me."

"I'm not doing that."

"Will you do the accent?"

Whiskey sighed and cleared his throat. "Tony, will you slow dance with me to this _Black Eyes Peas_ song?" he propositioned in his best attempt at a New York Yiddish accent.

It was the simultaneously the most adorable thing Whiskey had ever done, and the worst. Tony burst into a fit of laughter.

" _What was that?_ "

Whiskey blushed furiously. "That was—what was her name? Trisha Birkowitz?"

"She did _not_ sound like a grown man." Tony barely formed the words through his own laughter. "Although you did kinda sound like my great aunt, so way to kill the mood."

"I didn't realise I was creating a mood."

"Oh please, you know any talk about my Bar Mitzvah is gonna instantly create a mood."

Whiskey hummed and kissed him deeply again. "Is Trisha Birkowitz a better kisser than I am?"

"Oh yeah," Tony said earnestly. "She set the bar really high. You have a lot to live up to. And you should know I have a thing for braces, so— _ah!_ " He cut himself off with more laughter as Whiskey thumped him in the arm.

"Quit chirping, I'm trying to make out with you."

"Right, right, sorry," but it took him a few seconds to calm down his giddy giggles before proceeding.

Call him a sap, but he was just so happy. He felt bad for anyone who was missing out on this. It didn't take long for them to resurrect the mood from the dead—as soon as Whiskey slipped a tongue into his mouth, the game was on. Tony rolled them over to that Whiskey was on his back underneath him, hands running up and down his back like they had minds of their own.

Whiskey had nice eyes, a chestnut brown that he could swim in. They were especially nice when his pupils were blown wide, with no hint of chestnut brown in sight. Whiskey had nice hair, even if he did have a fuckboy haircut. He liked it when Tony ran his fingers through it, so he did it a lot. Not even just when they kissed—sometimes he would look down and his hands would already be running through Whiskey's hair of their own accord. Whiskey had a nice mouth. It spoke for itself what Tony liked to do with that. He had a nice neck too—he focused on not leaving any hickeys, neatly ignoring the fire in his belly and the instinct to find bodily contact and create friction.

"Whiskey," Tony murmured into the skin of his neck, pressing little kisses to the skin right under his ear and eliciting a small hum deep from within Whiskey's throat, "do you think we could go further tonight?"

Whiskey's breathing was laboured under Tony's chest, and his grip on Tony's back tightened, bunching up his shirt in his fist.

" _Yes_ ," he breathed without hesitation, and Tony's heart (along with something else) gave an ecstatic jump. Then;

"Wait, shit, no," Whiskey said with a jolt, as though he just remembered he'd left the stove on.

"What?" Tony stopped kissing him and stared down at him instead, trying to read in Whiskey's expression what had gone wrong. "Is everything alright?"

Whiskey's jaw was clenched and his body tense, but he was avoiding eye contact, so he was hard to read. Well, he was hard to read sometimes anyway, and Tony wasn't always the best at reading in between the lines, but it wasn't helping that Whiskey wasn't looking at him.

"Get off," Whiskey said, placing a hand on Tony's chest to create some distance between them.

_I'm trying_ , Tony wanted to say but didn't dare, instead frowning and sitting back on his knees. Whiskey rolled off the bed to stand, scouring the room for his shoes.

Tony winced at his own stupidity. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pressure you or anything, you know I wouldn't want you to do anything you weren't ready for." He paused, face hot as he chose his next words carefully. "But, um...I thought you were... _you know_. Into it?"

Whiskey seemed frantic, gripping the base of his throat as though he was about to choke on his own anxiety. "I have to go."

Tony stood instantly and approached him. "Don't go. Talk to me. Whiskey I'm your boyfriend, you can talk to me if something's wrong."

Whiskey stilled and stared at him, eyes finally focussing on his. Tony had never seen him look so ill in his life, and it terrified him. "Whiskey, seriously, is everything okay?"

"Okay," Whiskey nodded. Tony wasn't sure if he was answering him or psyching himself up for something. "Okay. I've been meaning to tell you something for a while now. Might as well be now."

Tony didn't want to panic, but this was starting to starting to sound like a breakup line. "Whiskey you're scaring me."

Whiskey took his hand, squeezing it before he lifted the hem of his shirt. Slowly, he placed Tony's hand on the warmth of his abdomen, and Tony was just about to ask him what he was doing when his fingers brushed against something that wasn't bare skin. It was a fabric of some sort, elasticated and ending halfway down Whiskey's ribcage. Whiskey was staring at the floor, refusing to meet his eyes.

"What is that?" Tony asked, slowly retrieving his hand.

"It's a binder. For chest compression," Whiskey said, clenching his jaw and swallowing. "I'm trans, Tony."

Tony took several moments to process the words. He cocked his head.

"So, wait—you don't have a dick?"

Whiskey winced, but ultimately shook his head. "No. I was born female. I only transitioned to male in my senior year. I've been meaning to tell you for a while, but...I chickened out a bunch of times. I kept picturing you rejecting me in my head, and it freaked me out. But I don't think I can keep it hidden from you any longer."

Tony thought back to Whiskey's odd behaviour—the changing in the bathrooms, showering after the rest of the team, the periods of time in which Whiskey would be more sensitive than usual, the nervous jolting when Tony's hand accidentally brushed the skin above his waistband. The significant lack of boner when they made out. It all clicked into place, and suddenly Tony was so amused that a laugh slipped from his lips. This was better than any alternative he'd imagined, which involved Whiskey dumping him for a hotter version of him that probably played lacrosse.

Unfortunately, Whiskey misinterpreted his laugh as something else. His face fell to an unseen depth and he folded his arms over his chest, hunched and looking smaller than ever.

"What?" There was a raw fear in his eyes, and Tony instantly knew that he'd fucked up.

"N-no, I wasn't laughing because it's _funny_ , I was—well it kind of _is_ , I mean. When I imagined us _doing it_ and stuff, I never pictured you having...you know."

In all fairness, this was not the right thing to say. Like, at all.

The expression on Whiskey's face was sobering. He was a crumbling wall, and Tony's words had just delivered a kick to the base. Tony saw his bottom lip wobble before he bit down on it hard.

"Why would you say that?" His words were so quiet, and the same time they were an earthquake. Like raising his voice any higher would splinter the floor. Tony wished it would, so that it could swallow him up.

"Whiskey— _christ_ , none of this is coming out right, but—I don't know what to _say_ , I mean I guess it's a shock but it's not _bad._ You know I—"

"I need to be alone right now," Whiskey said. His expression told Tony not to argue.

Tony's shoulders sagged in defeat. "Okay," he said. "Okay. We'll talk about this tomorrow when we're both sober and in our right minds, okay?"

Whiskey did not say okay, Whiskey was already out the door, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand as he practically sped down the hallway.

Tony threw himself down onto his bed, and screamed into his pillow.

 

The next few days were miserable.

He'd tried numerous times to get Whiskey's attention, all without success. It was clear that he was in the doghouse, but he didn't know what he could do to fix it when Whiskey would barely even look at him. He made up excuses to leave when Tony tried to get him alone, spoke to him using the bare minimum of the english language, avoided eye contact, and was never around unless he had to be. Their tension hadn't gone unnoticed by the team, but no one seemed to realise the severity of their falling out because no one had really known how close they were in the first place.

Tony was deprived of affection. He hadn't gone this long without a Whiskey-kiss since they'd started dating. Tony turned to the first person he could think of.

He found Lardo at the Samwell library, huddled over a coffee and watching something on her laptop.

"Lardo. Hi. Can I ask you a question?"

Lardo sighed, sitting back from her laptop and pulling out her earphones. "If I had a dime, Tango."

"What?"

"Nothing. What is it?"

Tony paused and then gingerly sat down in the seat in across from her. She raised her eyebrows when he hesitated, so he decided to just come right out with it.

"What do you know about being trans?"

She seemed taken aback, but her cool demeanour didnt waver for a moment. "About _being_ trans? Not much. But I like to think I'm quite educated on the rest of it." She dipped her head, eyes boring into him. "Why? Do you think you're..."

"No! No," Tony waved his hands with a sheepish smile, cutting off her train of thought. "It's not me, it's...well. Someone came out to me. As trans. And I think they're mad at me for the way I reacted, and...I don't know how to make it right. Like, what do you even say to something like that?"

Lardo sipped her coffee. "Are you cool with it?"

"With them being trans? Of course."

"Then tell them you're cool with it."

Tony wished it was that simple. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, slumping in his seat. "But they won't even talk to me anymore. I think I really messed up."

"What did you actually say?"

Tony swallowed thickly, face burning with guilt. "Um...I don't really wanna say, but...I think it was insensitive. And I also might have...laughed in their face?"

"Dude." Lardo fixed him a deadpan stare and leaned in. "Listen, you're a sweet kid, and you kinda look like a news anchor. But you, my friend, are one dense motherfucker."

Tony buried his face in his folded arms and groaned to himself. "I know." He looked up at her in exasperation. "What do I do? What do I say to make them feel, like, accepted and stuff."

Lardo chewed her lip for a moment in contemplation and then typed something into her laptop. When she twirled it around to face him, he saw that it was a webpage titled _Transgender Q &A—Everything you need to know_. Tony reached for it but she snapped it shut.

"Do your research, stupido. There's tonnes of shit online you can look at. Let them know that you accept them no matter what. I mean, if they chose you to come out to clearly your opinion matters to them, so just...let them know that they're safe and valid and all that junk."

Tony grinned and stood. "Thanks Lardo, you're the best."

She shrugged, closing her eyes in a small but proud smile. "I know, I'm a politically correct genius."

Tony spent hours sitting in the corner of the library on his phone until his battery ran low, scrolling through the entire website that Lardo had shown him, and many more. He absorbed the information again and again, reading personal stories, learning the terminology—what was cool and not cool to say—it had become increasingly clear how much of a douche-nozzle he'd been. He'd probably made it seem like he was _disappointed_ , or that Whiskey was in the wrong, which he wasn't—it was all just one big mess.

It seemed fitting that it was raining when Tony left the library, and no matter how fast he ran he still ended up getting drowned in the torrents. He contemplated buying a bouquet of flowers, but he figured it would raise too many questions if anyone saw him, so when he knocked on Whiskey's room door, it was with empty hands and sopping wet clothes. Whiskey's roommate opened the door in a hoodie that smelled like weed, but Tony could see Whiskey inside, hunched over his desk and doing homework with his earphones in.

"Hey man, would you be able to leave for like half an hour? It's kind of an emergency."

Whiskey's roommate looked outraged. "What? No way man."

Tony fished out his wallet. "I'll give you ten dollars."

"...Twenty."

"Fine," Tony sighed, and handed him a twenty. "But that's for an hour."

He was already out the door and down the hall by the time Tony spoke the words. Tony stepped inside and shut the door behind him, and Whiskey peeked up at the noise, swivelling around in his chair and pulling his earphones out when he saw Tony standing in his room.

"What are you doing here?" he said, face stony and refusing to betray his inner thoughts. He stood up and moved to face him.

"I have to ask." Tony gulped and composed himself before dragging his eyes from the floor to Whiskey. "Are...we going to break up? _Have_ we broken up?"

Whiskey stared at him for what seemed like years. His eyes had never been bigger, Tony thought. Or sadder.

"Tony— _no_...You know I don't want that."

Tony frowned. "Do I?"

Whiskey seemed very interested in his own hands. "I just...need time. You kinda hurt me."

Tony nodded frantically, clasping his hands in front of him. "I know that now, and trust me, I hate myself for it. I don't think I've ever been so sorry in my life, Whiskey. I was stupid, you know? No one's ever come out to me as trans before, and I had no clue what to say, or what the right thing to say was. Which is...clear. Obviously. But I need you to know that I'm totally cool with it! It doesn't make a difference what kind of body you have, you're still my amazing boyfriend and I love you and I'm a dumb stupid idiot, and that's what I should have said all along. I did, like, research and stuff so I guess I know more now than I did before, but I'm still learning. I want you to feel as comfortable around me as possible, Whiskey, I really do."

Tony paused, shoulder sagging as though emptying the words from his system had physically drained him. "But, um...if you still need time to think and stuff, that's cool too."

He waited patiently for a response, and watched as Whiskey shut his eyes momentarily, and coughed with his fist covering his mouth, thinly veiling what sounded to Tony like a choked sob bubbling up in his throat.

"Thanks," he said. "That's...I needed to hear that."

A wave of relief washed over him, and Tony stepped forward, opening his arms in question. Whiskey considered and then nodded, eyes cast downwards and jaw clenched as Tony enveloped him in a hug, holding him so tight that he could hear Whiskey's heartbeat. Whiskey was shaking, whether he realised it or not. Tony couldn't have any idea how terrifying it must have been for him to tell Tony the truth, especially after hiding it for so long. It must have taken a tremendous amount of courage, and Tony resented himself for not reacting better. At least Whiskey was in his arms now, and understood that he wasn't going anywhere.

"You said you love me," Whiskey's mumbled words were muffled by Tony's chest.

"You said it first," Tony smiled into his hair.

Whiskey went tense, and then said, still into Tony's shirt, "You prick."

Tony hummed. "If I ever hurt you like that again you have full permission to punch me in the face. Or get someone much larger than us to punch me in the face."

"I'll get Nursey to punch you," Whiskey said. "He's ripped."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Should I be jealous?"

"Absolutely. You should know I have a thing for hipster tattoos."

Tony snorted, glad the tension was dissipating. "What would you do if I came home tomorrow with a tribal tattoo?"

"Don't even joke about that, I'd literally disown you."

"Aww, c'mon that's harsh."

"I'd _literally_ publicly dump you. I'd out us _just_ so people could see me dump you."

"That's so rude," Tony said flatly. "I was gonna bring you flowers, you know."

"I'm glad you didn't, flowers are gay."

"We're gay! We're literally a gay couple!"

"Yeesh, say it louder, I don't think my uncle in Puerto Rico heard you."

"Unbelievable," Tony said, and Whiskey reeled him in to kiss him, soft and sweet.

They weren't perfect, but then again, they never had been in the first place. Tony didn't know everything, but not for the first time, Whiskey promised to answer all of his questions. In return, Tony promised to always hear his words before he said them, and to make Whiskey laugh every opportunity he got.

Whiskey wasn't really an enigma after all, he realised—he was a boy with a lot of secrets and a surprisingly open heart. Tony kissed his temple, and Whiskey nuzzled his neck, eyes closed and sighing deeply.

"So...you're cool with it?"

"Yeah. I'm cool with it."

 

**Author's Note:**

> @ngozi give us their real names
> 
> also...i'm kinda writing a sequel in which they /consummate/ the relationship...stay tuned folks


End file.
